CRISIS OF TRUST: HOW TO FIX WHAT'S BROKEN IN BRITAIN'S BOARDROOMS, BEDROOMS AND BEYOND

Trust is in dangerously short supply these days. From politics to once-dependable institutions and even within close-knit teams, confidence is fast evaporating. Trust is easy to lose and hard to earn. It’s built over time but lost in an instant - whether in personal relationships, businesses or in the corridors of power.

In this week’s episode, Rachel and Simon discuss and debate how we built it, lose it, regain it and cope with it - starting with the individual. Want people to trust you? It’s all about being the same on the inside as you are on the outside. “Trust starts in the mirror, not in the memo,” as Rachel puts it. When it comes to relationships is honesty is non-negotiable? Or can we carry a certain amount of mistrust? In business too, is trust all? Effective leaders know how to be straightforward with staff and the public, take personal responsibility for decisions and engage in authentic and transparent dialogue.​ Does building trust in teams or organisations demands honest self-assessment, clear purpose, and a willingness to engage constructively with conflict?

And when trust is lost in politics, rebuilding competence is what’s needed. Not to be confused with PR or reputation management. The public expects politicians to act not spin. From the Post Office scandal to grooming gangs, from Ratner calling products ‘crap’ to BP CEO pretending the spread of the oil spill is negligible, trust in public bodies crumbles when facts are swept under the carpet and victims’ voices are denied. Ordinary people can cope with uncertainty, but they won't stomach dishonesty or hypocrisy, and when leaders bury the truth, it's not just the direct victims who lose faith - the whole public suffers.​

Key takeaways

· Self before system: inner alignment beats performative signalling.

· Rupture is inevitable; repair is a skill (truth + accountability + consistency).

· Don’t confuse comms with credibility; behaviour is the message.

· Values work only when tied to observable behaviours and consequences.

· In high-stakes issues, be trauma-informed, not optics-led.

Practical actions for leaders

· Schedule one “repair conversation” you’ve been avoiding; name the rupture and propose a path back.

· Replace one all-staff email with 10 targeted 1-1s that rebuild credibility.

· Translate your values into two columns: “Looks like / Doesn’t look like” and use it in PDRs.

· In contentious debates, separate transparency (honest facts) from disclosure-dumping (deflection).

· Adopt “listen to hear → reflect → respond” as your process for dialogue.

BOSTON CONSULTING TRUST INDEX

https://shorturl.at/zmmzQ

REBUILDING TRUST

https://shorturl.at/XOVT7

For more about Rachel: Who Is The Fearless Facilitator? - Fearless Facilitator

For more about Simon: Who We Are – Diversity by Design

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Simon & Rachel get gloriously uncomfortable.

It’s a rollicking debate with sharp edges, full-throttle disagreement in part, and one very live question who’s it actually worth arguing with anymore?

Simon’s just back from the Battle of Ideas, where he shared space with people he vehemently disagrees with and has mixed feelings as a result. Rachel, on the other hand, reckons the whole thing’s just too right-wing for her vibe, recognising she may be reinforcing her own biases, and worries about the reputational risk of legitimising certain viewpoints. So, it’s a conversation of the wrestle with our own tensions about who to talk to about when and when.

Is the real dividing line today Left versus Right or liberals versus authoritarians, on both sides?

And what if, whisper it, the Right might actually be right that Britain’s true clash is between the elite and the people?

New research from More in Common and Arch 10 reveals just how out of touch the progressive and public-sector “elites”, including many driving diversity and inclusion, have become from the wider public, especially on sex, gender, patriotism, and free speech.

Battle of Ideas had everything: a panel on the Supreme Court judgment, disbelief that trans people even exist, a tweet labelling DEI “a virus,” and yet a surprisingly diverse audience and a bromance brewing between Simon and Andrew Doyle in over Simon’s taste in coloured couture.

In the end, the duo agrees on one thing: it’s time to move past the culture wars.

What we need are Fearless Diversity gatherings with rosé, civility, and the courage to disagree well. Who wants to join us?

Fearless Diversity where nuance still has the mic.

RESOURCES

Arch10 “Two Britains”

https://shorturl.at/TC89q

More in Common – “Progressive Activists”

https://shorturl.at/eLwW6

Battle of Ideas

https://www.battleofideas.org.uk/

Ben Cooper (one of the KCs who represented in the Supreme Court) explainer on the Supreme Court judgement in For Women Scotland

https://shorturl.at/0QRCX

For more about Rachel: Who Is The Fearless Facilitator? - Fearless Facilitator

For more about Simon: Who We Are – Diversity by Design

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fearless Diversity: Identity, Civility, and the Courage to Disagree

At a time when public debate feels less like dialogue and more like a contest over whose feelings matter most, Simon and Rachel take a breath, and a stand, for nuance, empathy, and civility.

Because identity whether shaped by sex, gender, class, ethnicity, or belief has become both the lens through which we see the world and, too often, the wall that divides us.

In this episode, they explore what happens when politics becomes a battle of tribes rather than a search for solutions. From the far-reaching debates at the recent FiLiA conference, Europe’s largest feminist gathering, to boardrooms wrestling with diversity data, the same question runs through it all: how do we honour difference without hardening into division?

Rachel argues that class still defines how women experience both oppression and opportunity, and Simon challenges the orthodoxy of identity politics itself. Together, they unpack how leaders can use diversity data not as a flag to wave but as a lens for understanding asking, what are we really trying to learn here?

Because perhaps, in an age of permanent outrage, the most radical act isn’t shouting louder it’s listening better.

If you enjoy listening to us, please do like and share

Resources:

FILIA. https://www.filia.org.uk/

Fire Service Black Members - National Conference 2025 https://shorturl.at/A92tV

Black Excellence in Governance https://shorturl.at/lHFn3

For more about Rachel: Who Is The Fearless Facilitator? - Fearless Facilitator

For more about Simon: Who We Are – Diversity by Design

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.